First impressions – Meebo IM now available on the iPhone. And it’s free.
The App Store has no shortage of IM apps in its catalog, but as we all know, not all of them offer a good experience. The official paid version of AIM is a bit bloated and slow to send messages; IM+, along with Nimbuzz, Palringo and fring all have terrible user interfaces. Beejive IM is pretty much the only exception here – loads quickly, has reliable Push Notifications, a nice interface, landscape support, among other things.
We’ve always wondered why Meebo, the king of in-browser IM, never released a native iPhone app. We do not have to wonder any longer as Meebo has just released a Native iPhone app.
Best of all, it’s free.
Our initial impressions of the app:
- It launches FAST. Faster than any other IM app.
- The interface is really nice and clean, although not better than BeejiveIM in my humble opinion. Still, it’s not ugly or bad by any stretch of the imagination.
- Push Notifications are supported, however Meebo does not state how long it will keep you signed in for.
- Works on Landscape!
- We haven’t seen any ads yet, which is pretty surprising since this is a free app.
I’m moving this to the front page and using it as my main IM app. And I think you should, too. Great, great job, Meebo. You are now the king of IM on the iPhone, too. Update: Okay, I have been using this app all day and I have a few more things to add. This app does not support file transfers. I had not realized that until I tried to send a picture to a friend, only to find out the app has no such feature. This might be a deal breaker for some. The app is still superb, but no file transfers is rather disappointing.
